the deafening silence of the institutional church -- again, with a few exceptions -- accounts in part for the recent Pew survey showing that a majority of Americans who go to church regularly believe torture can be justified.As faith leaders, we find this shocking and shameful. There is no counterweight to the demagoguery and politics of fear that hold sway, none to speak to the morality of the issue. None but us.
If you think the torture has stopped, you are wrong. Because of the sad state of our corporate media, it takes extra effort to find out what's actually going on.
Check out, for example, international human rights attorney Scott Horton's June 15 piece in Harpers. Horton describes as "residue of the Bush-era torture system" a "force-feeding" program of the kind formally banned by the World Medical Association in 1991. Guantánamo prisoner Abdullah Saleh al-Hanashi, one of the "force-fed" inmates, was pronounced dead June 1; an "apparent suicide," according to the camp commander.
It will be interesting to see whether Obama administration officials will react in the callous way their predecessors did to the June 10, 2006, suicides of three Guantánamo prisoners. Then-prison commander Rear Adm. Harry Harris described the suicides as "an act of asymmetric warfare committed against us." Colleen Graffy, a deputy assistant secretary of state, called the suicides "a good PR move."
President Obama has apparently decided he has stuck his political neck out as far as he can. Against very strong opposition, he did release the "torture memos" -- the most shameful prose ever printed under Department of Justice letterhead -- but has been reluctant to move beyond that.
Perhaps he hoped that we would read those memos, be appropriately outraged and create countervailing pressure to help him face down the torture aficionados still in his entourage.
